 Byington was active in the antislavery movement and when the leadership of the Methodist Episcopal Church opposed abolitionism, he withdrew from that denomination and joined the new antislavery Wesleyan Methodist Connection.He helped to erect a church and parsonage that are still standing at Morely, New York.He went as a lay delegate to the Wesleyan organizational General Conference meeting in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1844; and later became a Wesleyan minister pastoring the church at Lisbon, New York.